Topic:The Weeping Detective and the Killer Clown: Crime and
Punishment in the American Media.

Popular culture always has been filled with tales of crime and punishment
-- from the earliest days of the printing press to the world of interactive
computer games. This course will examine the public fascination with crime
in the media by exploring the relationship between crime in society and the
depiction of crime in movies and television. The media's role in shaping
the public understanding of crime is complicated and hotly debated. Are
movies and television programs responsible for making society more violent?
Or are they responsible for making us paranoid and fearful by
misrepresenting the level of social violence? Or does popular culture
merely provide an opportunity for us to imagine the causes and consequences
of crime, the responsibilities of the legal system, and the limits of
justice? Most importantly, why are we drawn to stories about cops, lawyers,
criminals, and victims? Our goal will be to understand the lasting appeal
of crime in popular culture by exploring the many ways in which crime and
punishment are mediated in movies and in various forms of television
programming -- police and detective series, soap operas, courtroom dramas,
local and national news coverage, "reality" shows, talk shows, Court TV,
etc.

This course does not have a required screening session, but students will
be expected to view assigned movies and television programming outside of
class.  Students will be expected to write a seminar paper.

Christopher Anderson
Department of Communication and Culture
809 E. 7th St.
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN  47401

email:  			anderso@indiana.edu
phone (personal office):  	(812) 855-5914
phone (department office):	(812) 855-6389
fax (department):  		(812) 855-6014
fax (personal):  		(603) 658-7361